As you all know by now, Gates of Vienna went down early Saturday morning and didn’t come back up until sometime after I went to bed last night.
The problem was some sort of issue with the WordPress database that acts as the engine for GoV. Henrik Ræder Clausen, who kindly takes care of the back end of this site in addition to all his other duties, was away for the weekend, and had access only to a phone. So he couldn’t tackle the problem until he came home.
We hope that the situation has been permanently fixed. If it recurs, and the blog disappears again for a period, you’ll know that this is the reason.
We had to restore from Wednesday night’s backup. I’ll be recreating the posts for Thursday and Friday from the original documents, and the news feeds from the database in the Auxiliary Brain (providing I have time). So watch for the missing posts to gradually reappear beneath this one, if all goes well.
Update: All the missing posts have been republished. However, the comments that came in on Thursday and Friday are gone for good; they can’t be recovered. I apologize for that.
Hooray!!!!!
Yeah, it was nice to have the Baron available for all my ‘honey dew’ projects, but this makes me soo happy.
Dance, dance, dance….
I was concerned that the site had been (successfully) attacked by some free-speech loving, religion of peace enthusiast; I’m glad to hear that that was not the case.
As an aside, and I mean this respectfully and I hope neither of you will take offense – but it’s so pleasant and charming to read your playful interactions with each other, that you sometimes “voice” on GoV. A little bit of light in a rather darkening world.
Glad to see you back up! I was getting worried!
Phew. Had me worried for a while there… Don’t know what I’d have done without my regular fix of some of the best writing out there.
Don’t worry too much if it happens again. We own the domain name, we pay for private hosting, and the site is protected by a firewall. If we go down at all, it will likely be due to internal technical problems, just as it was this time.
The worst case scenario is that we may need to upgrade again to a plan that provides more resources, since the issue may have been caused by pushing our load up against the limit of allowed resources. And that, of course, will cost more money. But at least it’s doable.
‘Firewall’ is quite an understatement 🙂
more requests for money… i think you are both working this site for financial reward…
ducks and hens… read it…
baz
Yeah, you got me dead to rights. We’ve been making tons of money from this, but we can’t afford another Maserati without selling the Jetstream, and we really don’t want to do that — we need it to commute back and forth from Malibu to Hawaii. So we’re going to squeeze our credulous readers even further and extract more money from them.
You sussed out our sneaky little game, you clever fellow!
Soooooh funny! Thanks for being here.
We’re Only in it for the Money, right?
Yeah, Henrik, I heard you’re moving to Tahiti on what we pay you.
I will take ducks and hens – organic, anyway . I’ll even clean and feather them…
Indeed amazing are the levels of cynicism. Why is this fellow even here? Oh wait – he doesn’t know about Henrik’s amazing ability to pick his pocket while he’s commenting. Heh.
Enh, the Baron was in it for the chicks, too, Henrik.
Dire Straits – Money For Nothing + lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwDDswGsJ60
That was the question I asked myself of Baz: why is this fellow even here?
What sort of empty life does Baz lead, that he has the time to read the “Back on the tracks” post on GoV? Plainly the post is for GoV diehards who were concerned about the site being down and the possible explanation for it.
Thank God! In all honesty, I was beginning to believe that this website was under attack by some kind of anti-Freedom-of-Speech/Press vigilante. Many thanks for getting this site up and running again.
I was definitely beginning serious withdrawal pangs. Happy to see you again! 🙂
It was mutual, Cynthia. I thought of y’all so often it felt like withdrawal.
Its nice to know we are pushing the limits again…..
I assume we are getting to the point where some big bucks are going to be involved in the next upgrade, mySQL has some builtin brick walls if that is where you are….
While I don’t comment on the specific tools used by GoV, it is indeed becoming an issue of more bucks to carry the ever-increasing traffic.
a ploy to extract money
No, it was a technical glitch which disconnected the content manager from its database. It happens primarily because the site is underfunded and is dealing with ever increasing throughput which puts a strain on the component parts. A site this popular would normally be making big bucks in advertising and would easily be able to afford to go to the next stage. But that is not the case.
There is a small cadre of loyal backers who donate to this site, some donate money, some donate time. Your comment dishonours all those people. The Baron and D do not profit from the site, and it runs at a small net loss, I understand. The shortfall having to be made good from personal savings.
On my side, each of my essays take about 4 to six hours to write, they are donations too. The Baron then probably spends at least an hour, probably more, editing and formatting them. I do not get paid for them, and in the 3 years since my first article, I have had two very kind donations which at the time were much needed.
I do it because I love writing and history, and I believe in the CJ cause. If I were good enough to turn professional I would lose my freedom, I too would become a 2nd class hack having to write lies to pay the rent, I would become part of the problem.
If you enjoy or appreciate the work that the GoV team puts together then consider a donation (if you are not already doing so), If you do not enjoy it, then what I suggest would break the website rules.
What a lucid reply to a snarker. Thanks, M.C.
Yep, we did have to dip into savings this time. Big gulp:
1.the plumbing flood also required a new pressure pump in the well (and then the water heater went bad). The new pump comes over the lip of the well house so the edge will have to be built up to meet the roof so the latter is not lying on the new pump. Definitely to be done before winter or that space will freeze.
2.the take-down of that massive, once beautiful and now deceased mimosa wasn’t cheap, but at least it’s finally done, leaving a huge empty space. Still takes me by surprise.
3.the horror with the heating system (still waiting to hear from them. We had an 800.00 over-run on the budgeted bill at the end of the heating year in May. It’s because these HVAC ppl failed to secure the ducts according to code when they installed them. In fact, they secured almost NONE of them. Had all those water pipes not failed at once, we’d not have known we wuz heating the crawl space to the tune of 800.00. Given their silence to our request to discuss it, I can see small claims court in our future. Not only stressful but sad: we have been their customers since before they put in the new system. Betrayal is hard.)
4.My dental bills, the rise in the cost of our house insurance, & etc.& so on, have taken their toll. Nothing awful, but added to the rest of the slings and arrows. Sigh.
On the good side,
So far, our 14 (15?) year-old car is still running fine. Knock on fiberglass.
I’ll share more good news during our fund raiser, the one where that baz fellow gives us a perpetual endowment so large that we can fund counterjihad scholars. It will be so satisfying…for everyone.
Of course. But why this need to repeat yourself on such an obvious issue, my dear man? Are you concerned that your very generous gift will be outdone by another donor?
Not to worry. We won’t tell.
Dear Baron,
I am glad that your techno difficulties are sorted.
You may be dismayed to learn that Tommy Robinson has been recalled to prison (HMP Peterborough) with only eight days left on his licence.
Please see his twitter feed.
I had been getting concerned that it was time to head for the hills, but fortunately Gates of Vienna came back. Now that Obama and Iran have agreed to destroy the world, maybe it is time to head out.
Good to see my favorite site back up again. Many people have missed you!
Glad you’re BACK!! Missed you. Thanks for the work of contributors to this wonderfully informative site.
Welcome back and don’t let it happen again 🙂